The OpenFOAM® CFD methodology is nowadays employed for
simulation in internal combustion engines and a lot of work has
been done for an appropriate description of all complex phenomena.
At the moment in the RANS turbulence models available in the
OpenFOAM® toolbox the turbulence modulation is not yet included,
and the present work analyzes the predictive capabilities of the
code in simulating high injection pressure fuel sprays after
modeling the influence of the dispersed phase on the turbulence
structure.
Different experiments were employed for the validation. At
first, non-evaporating diesel spray was considered in a constant
volume and quiescent vessel. The validation was performed via the
available experimental spray evolution in terms of penetrations and
spatial/temporal fuel distributions. Then the Sandia combustion
chamber was chosen for diesel spray simulation in non-reacting
conditions. The effect of turbulence modulation was analyzed in
terms of liquid and vapor penetrations, turbulent viscosity and
intensity adopting different sets of spray sub-models to evaluate
the relative influence of turbulence modulation by varying
atomization and breakup models.
Simulations show that turbulence modulation modeling produces,
as the main effect of particles on the continuous gas phase, an
enhancement of the gas turbulent intensity and vapor diffusion. In
any case the proposed approach should be able to correctly simulate
the mixture formation process of a diesel fuel spray.